BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...

Subject: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 02:56 PM

Dear Mudcat Pals, Pals-to-Be, and Others--

When you create new threads it helps me tremendously when you use the prefixes Max has created for us-- especially the ones that separate BS ("Bountiful Sharings" or any other translation you choose) from music threads...

One way these help me is that when I have time I go looking (via filter) for various Req threads that have not been addressed, to either try to help find info or at least refresh them, and of course the filter makes this work with the limited online time some of us have... with the prefixes I can do this twice a week. Without them I would have to do it nightly, and I can't.

And... I know there are many others who have been trying to follow the recently re-suggested convention of steering clear of BS threads if BS postings are not their preferred beverage at the Cafe...

As well as some who might like to refrain from posting BS in music threads...

So please? Let's use the tools we have to keep this community the special place it means to be, for everyone?

~Susan~

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 04:39 PM

I must admit I find this regular harping on 'keeping to the rules' - when the one about BS, in particular, is rather vague at best - mildly irritating. Nothing personal, Praise. You are doing a marvellous job trying to help newcomers to find their way around, and I can see why the prefixes are useful to you. It's just that it's very hard to decide what constitutes BS, and people seem to be very unsure about it. I agree with you that a lot of it turns up in music threads, unmarked, but some of the most interesting threads recently were marked BS for no reason I could see, e.g. the Train Songs thread. Couldn't we just let the matter rest for a while? (Or come up with clearer rules?) NOM, Susanne

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: sophocleese
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 05:09 PM

Okay Suzanne, some valid criticisms there. Perhaps we could start making some suggestions for what might be considered BS and what might not, after a few days we could have a clearer idea of what it means or could mean.

For me, if I were starting a thread and calling it BS it would have no immediate musical content, a different take on nationalism, for instance, that I think might be of interest to other mudcatters who have written to and read the thread "Do Americans Know". I think threads that are clearly asking a question about playing an instrument, dealing with a common situation that you might face in performing music or asking for songs of a particular type are not BS threads. These are only my own particular and peculiar guidelines and I have no intention of trying to force them on others.

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 05:18 PM

Well I am not trying to enforce any rules, or particulary to provoke a discussion, but it is a complicated place... and didn't we just spend a rather painful period of time partly working out that the structures we do have are one way of handling things that are otherwise apparently not handleable?

It is hard to know when to title with BS-- you should have seen the look on my face as I contemplated titling this thread myself!

~Susan~

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 05:19 PM

best way might be to familiarize yourself with names of those that seem to thrive on nothing but BS and AVOID their posts like the PLAGUE

ain't all that hard to list the TOP 10

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 05:26 PM

Guest, to clarify, I did not say I desired to avoid BS.

If you want to use this thread to have a fresh fight, you've picked someone to try it with who has no desire to fight with you.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 05:28 PM

One problem is knowing how to avoid to avoid someone who posts in as GUEST without any kind of additional identifying name or number. Or how not to not to avoid them for that matter. After all the next time it might be a comletely different individual...

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: bbc
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 05:37 PM

If I really felt what I was posting was "foolish, insolent talk; nonsense" which is how "bull shit" is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, I would show the self-control to refrain from posting it. If non-musical threads are what you are talking about, that is another matter. I refuse to put my non-musical threads under the prefix "BS" since I consider it a misnomer.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 06:42 PM

I reckon it stands for "But Surely", an excellent label for threads in which we point out the error of our ways and our logic to each other.

The thing is thgere are several types of BS thread - and they aren't all even "non-musical".

I personally think that the type of threads where people list favourite songs, and gossip about what they mean to them personally, come valiodly under the label. That's not to disparage these threads, that's what you do with friends in other settings, and it's one of the ways you get to know them better, and to broaden your appreciation of music.

But it's different from a serious discussion about something on which people may disagree, like war or religion or politics.

And it's different again from a game in which people jointly improvise and elaborate a social setting, like the Mudcat Tavern.

And it's different from an exchange of jokes and wordplay -"foolish, insolent talk; nonsense". (And I think that's got a right to be here as well.)

Using the same label for all these things doesn't make a lot of sense, and is one of the reasons why people tend not to use the prefix BS a lot of the time. I think that a few extra labels might make things go a bit smoother. Especially maybe a way of identifying the Discussion threads and the Fun Threads. (DISC & FUN ?)

At the same time, threads are going to drift whatever happens, and most of these different types of thread can run into each other. And creative and imaginative thread drifting is great fun sometimes, and the Mudcat would be a lot poorer if we all stuck to rigidly divided tramlines. So we won't.

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: Crowhugger
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 07:20 PM

Can we talk about music, please?

CH

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 07:25 PM

Hi All; What's all the broohaha? As a reasonably new member to mudcat, I really don't know the difference between a BS and a non bs thread. It surely isn't important enough to savage each other over, afterall, we are all friends here right? I do have a query of an informational sort. I'm looking for skipping or counting songs from London's Whitechapel/Spitalfields districts during the Victorian era that would have been in vouge in the spring of 1888. I am reseaching a novel on Jack the Ripper, hence the fairly specific date. I can be reached at [e-mail] or post it here. I do check the boards here pretty much daily. Thank you all, Neil PS- be good to each other!

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 07:35 PM

To clarify again, one person...

making a reasonable request...

politely...

and under her own name...

does not constitute a savaging...

or an invitation to engage in any savaging... .

~Susan~

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: thosp
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 07:46 PM

bbc --- i feel exactlythe same way about the BS designation

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: Caitrin
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 08:07 PM

Any thread I start which does not have a direct application to music, I use the BS designation. I figure that, even if I don't think it's bullshit, someone else (most likely someone who thinks nothing but music, and only folk and blues music, should be discussed here) probably does. So I have no problem labeling non-music threads as BS. I figure it's just doing my part to be accomodating to other opinions.
As for posting BS in musical threads...
I generally don't, since it obviously offends many people. I don't think a little joke now and then hurts anything, though.

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: GUEST, A.C.
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 08:43 PM

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
...take Praise into your thoughts and prayers.

Praise,
who's REAL home is in one of those Black & White films that we see on Sunday afternoons

We love ya, babe!!

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: GUEST,Father Mullcaihee
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 08:47 PM

Praise, m'Darling....we missed you in church last Sunday (and here, on the Forum too.......

NOT!

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: GUEST,Father Mullcaihee
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 08:47 PM

Praise, m'Darling....we missed you in church last Sunday (and here, on the Forum too.......

NOT!

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: GUEST, Threadie
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 08:50 PM

"...So good you say it twice.."

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: The Beanster
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 02:00 AM

Caitrin,

I agree. Because I don't consider the terms "BS" necessarily, a derogatory term, I would have no problem using that prefix when starting a non-musical thread. I've found people pretty touchy here sometimes when it comes to what I consider, trivialities-- (except in Praise's case, where a clear designation truly serves a purpose) so you're right--what's the harm in trying to accommodate the people who are bothered by non-musical discussions to warn them off non-musical topics? It's just another way of cooperating within a community. The good of the whole and all that...

Subject: RE: BS: When Creating a New Thread, Please...
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 10:44 AM

There doesn't have to be universal compliance here. I believe it was Sandy Paton who first thought up the "BS" designation, and was surprised when folks thought he was serious. I've always tried to avoid it cause there are more definitions of BS than there are for "folk music". Just keep in mind though, that "general" topics have NEVER caused flaming around here. (quite the opposite) The only thing that really gets some folks' shorts in a knot is their perception of "over posting with no discernable content" by some.

Hardly something to lose sleep over though.

Rick